1. Field of the Invention
A fixture socket.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Screw sockets are well-known commercial items for lighting devices. Many types of sockets are available. One conventional socket has a metallic screw-threaded sleeve for engagement with the screw base of a bulb and also has a central cantilever leaf spring for engagement with the center button of a lamp bulb base. The sleeve and central contact are secured to an electrically non-conductive base that is provided with screw-type electric terminations, and the sleeve and base are protected by a thin, usually paper type, electrically non-conductive sleeve. The sleeve is contained within a two-piece thin metal cover. Suitable switch control means extends from the metal sleeve/base combination through the paper sleeve and cover for external manipulation. The cover is provided with an opening through which a power cord is threaded. The ends of the power cord are stripped and connected to the screw-type terminations.
Other conventional sockets are fashioned with internally threaded electrically non-conductive sockets containing internal contacts. The contacts are connected to a power cord either by soldering, welding, screw-type terminations, or tines that extend through unstripped electrically non-conductive sheaths. Push-type wire terminations are also employed but usually not in association with screw sockets. Push-type terminations are designed to engage a stiff wire core which is thrust into an electric device, for example, a duplex outlet, or a cube tap, or an electric heating appliance, or an electric motorized appliance. The stiff core is arranged to brush past and deflect the cantilever tip of a leaf spring which presses against the core and resists any attempt to pull the core back.
A push-type connection is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,805,211, although the same is not typical because it is especially designed to be used with spade terminations.
Prior art sockets frequently are used with lighting fixtures in which the socket is supported on some element of the fixture or on a stationary structural element. Customarily, the connection is effected physically with the aid of pipes, and intermediate threaded devices are employed which threadedly engage the socket and the element. However, in addition to the physical connection that must be arranged for, an electric connection must be provided between the house power lines and the socket. The electric connection is obtained by running power lines usually through a pipe and then into the socket where it engages the power terminations of the socket. There is a problem in that it is inconvenient and usually impossible to thread the wires through the pipes and into the socket after the physical connections have been made and also to minimize the length of the run of wire. Heretofore, to partially overcome the problem, a hickey has been employed. A hickey is a device which constitutes a pair of short threaded nipples interconnected by diametrically opposite straps that leave a space between them for threading of a wire through the nipple. Thus, a wire can be pulled from a power source in a building out through the space between the straps and then re-introduced in that space for connection to the socket. The use of hickeys, however, still made the electric connection to the socket an awkward one. Its use was time consuming and it did not readily permit the shortening of the run of wire.